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Newbie Island clearance

So, a bit late to rant about this, but everyone that has played for more than two years knows, that there used to be all kinds of cool things dropping on Newbie Island, implants, clusters, dyna boss armour parts... ALIEN WEAPONS...

Life was bliss, but you couldn't fit that many in your inventory. Soon, the guns and armour began to disappear, leaving only the current sets and metaplast in, then metaplast and implants, boom, gone... now we are left with, exactly... not much to collect! I can go to Newbie Island and be unable to fill up my inventory alone.

And what then, what do we get then, after even alien weapons are removed? A backpack... a backpack, for what?

...

So please Funcom, please... bring back the implants, the clusters... the regular dynaboss loot... the alien weapons... PLEASE! Then we will be able to actually use the backpack on Newbie Island.

I need as much support on this one as possible, if there is a remote chance on getting this through. Support making Newbie Island into a fun start of AO once again, and not a formal Anarchy-Online 101 tutorial!

And what then, what do we get then, after even alien weapons are removed? A backpack... a backpack, for what?

*snip*

Support making Newbie Island into a fun start of AO once again, and not a formal Anarchy-Online 101 tutorial!

QFT... what indeed can fill a backpack when nothing drops anymore? You even went and removed the Take me to the Shop! items... for what? For the sake of noob friendlessness? Bah... noobs hate it as much as vets do; they get to the mainland with no chance of having any items or money and are thrown into the market of overpriced stuff with less money then ever.

Why have vendors on noob island selling noob armour when you just make a quest for it? Why sell the sunglasses or tech library when you can no longer get even 1/4 of the money to buy it before going insane from the innumerable mobs killed in farming....

I also want regular dyna drops back, the Solar-Powered weapons and upgrades don't cut it, it's much more fun to take a Division 9, SOL K-91 Mini/K-94 Baby Monster, etc. to the mainland, in a nice set of metaplast, or even steelribbed.

For us paying people, low level alien weapons (Maybe just my opinion) were a good reason to go to the newbie island. They gave us an edge and could be used for a pretty nice while, it was awesome...

I think it was said somewhere that the Alien weapons were removed because they were confusing the newbie froobs too much.

Thats just a load of bs.

Those shiny new alien weapons i found from the newb area when i was a froob and started playing this game were the first reason i upgraded to all expansions. I saw those things in my inventory every day and i really wanted to try and use them.

Well none of that matters now ince they aren't dropping anymore.

BUMP to get AI weapons and dyna loot back to newb island!

It doesn't confuse nobody - it only encourages to learn more.

And it's also true that noobs cant make any money in the island anymore. How are they supposed to make it in the mainlands if they cant even buy better nano+health kit and stims?

If all those drops are nerfed because FC wants people to spend less time on the starter area thats also a weird point of view. Because the shuttleport is a perfect place to learn the game mechanics. It's better for the beginners to stay there as long as it takes to learn the basics and collect some money and stuff and then when they move to RK they already now something and they have some money and stuff to use in the subway etc.

Atleast i didn't even want to get out from the island before i learned something. I asked help in the newb ooc and tried to learn as much as possible in there.

Then when i moved to RK i had already enough money to buy some med stuff and even a couple of implants.

Removing "Take me to the Shop" doesn't lessen the new player's confusion, it simply makes their start harder due to lack of cash.

Removing alien weapons doesn't lessen the newcomer's confusion, it simply removes a possible sort of income (highbies used to buy "glowsticks" ) and removes a show of what the upgrade will bring.

Removing imps and all the other drops doesn't lessen the newcomer's confusion, it simply means they have a harder time starting out.
Now they have no armor until they can complete the quests and simultaneously it's removing a source of income. (Hey, when starting at zero every cred counts.)

Removing the rings is the same thing, not at all contributing to making the learning curve any less steep, only making it harder for newcomers by reducing their income - and knowledge of items, by the way. If they don't see low-level versions of items they won't know what it is at higher levels.

Making ICC Island more newbie friendly?
It's funny but it seems more like purposely making it harder to get new players to stay..

Me? Trouble? No trouble..

As Mae West said: "Never resist temptation, you don't know if you'll get another chance."

Actually, having the quests for all the weapon upgrades etc. used to be a guide to tradeskilling for new players... So are implants... Having armour brought diversity on newbie island, and they tried to see what's best...

Getting dyna loot on Newbie Island won't treathen anything, the best thing is getting ql. 1 loot from the beach bosses, and guess what, 99% of every item available at ql. 1 isn't available! So it would finally find a use for all those things, and I'd prefer a Sol K-91 Mini Monster over a Solar-Powered Pistol any day.

I want the noob island stuff back as well. It gives experienced players a reason to sit around and camp aliens there, meaning more questions answered and help given to new froobs. Also, it's more people saying "expansions are worth it" to those considering them.

Those are solid benefits that are hard to ignore. Without cool things at low levels, experienced players dissapear to the Shadowlands, never to be seen again until level 40-50 when it's time to grab some totw loot prior to hitting nasc hecklers. The closer paying players are to froobs, the more froobs will want to become paying players.

Also, it's dumb for FC to worry about confusing new players. AO is confusing to new players already! What's one more wacky nuance? Here, I'll solve it with this scenario:

this QL 1-15 **** was sold allot? please...its been wel known that most alien weapons of extreme low level s were...umm...crap (or at least dead even) in effectivness with stuff you coulod BUY form a Rk store. spending cash on the old island drops was worth it?

Since most people now adays...(at least new ones according to database rush's and watching how lowbies rise in levels) will outlevel any trash from teh newbie backyards your all whining about, in less than a few hours.

Whats teh big deal? it cant be used much in the backyard (due to lack of ammo) and will be used even less by the FULL PAYING people who have Alien invasion (paying cash) who get to Rk in less than a hour or so.

Hell's bells folks..your all obsessing abotu items..that can EASILLY be replaced witrhout any cash spending form **** you would pick up froma rk mission....

Metalynx: 216..... 4 more levels and the server will shut down!

Metalynx: "I seriously hope all the stupid people in the world don't congrigate in one spot, for all the weight of this massive amount of raw idiodicy, might collapse upon itself, creating a Singularity of Ignorant Stupidity, unmatched in strength by any black hole in the universe"

this QL 1-15 **** was sold allot? please...its been wel known that most alien weapons of extreme low level s were...umm...crap (or at least dead even) in effectivness with stuff you coulod BUY form a Rk store. spending cash on the old island drops was worth it?

Since most people now adays...(at least new ones according to database rush's and watching how lowbies rise in levels) will outlevel any trash from teh newbie backyards your all whining about, in less than a few hours.

Whats teh big deal? it cant be used much in the backyard (due to lack of ammo) and will be used even less by the FULL PAYING people who have Alien invasion (paying cash) who get to Rk in less than a hour or so.

Hell's bells folks..your all obsessing abotu items..that can EASILLY be replaced witrhout any cash spending form **** you would pick up froma rk mission....

depends on the weapon, i've sold some even for 1/2 mil a piece. it is for lvl 1 twinks. and yes it was sold a lot. i still have a backpack full somewhere, probably can get an easy 50mil for all the weapons in the backpack, seeing the prices that are being paid for those nowadays.

Yup once upon a day i rolled my soldier... i camped a ql12 kyr carbine for him (from the newb island) and it was a lot better than the upgraded starter weapon.

Not to mention that it looks better and makes the froobs in the NI ask: "wth is that giant hairdryer youre carrying?" :P

Later i even typed that same ql12 kyr carbine to type 5 for my lowbie doc because i wanted him to use JAME blaster later and wanted to use AR+burst+fling all the way.

Now that was a hell of a gun for the first 20 levels for doc. (ok maybe a bit expensive ip wise but the damage was good indeed...)

Anyway the problem with NI nowadays is that there is exactly no way to earn any money in there. So all the beginners gathers around subway and beg for every higher level player who come by: "credz plx" etc. etc.

Newbs dont learn sh*t in there because there no experienced players to help them.

And by the way... RK is too huge place to start the learning progress. I know when i started playing AO it took me weeks to learn how to move around with whompa's and trying to figure out which leads where and so on. It's not too easy to read the map either, because the default maps are crap and as a newb i didnt have a clue about any better maps, until after a few weeks.

Now if/when i roll an alt i can get all needed equipment from the newb island in 1-2 hours, without the need to stay longer (and because the newb shoulderpads and the +1 scope for ex. can be traded from "older" toon)

When a new player starts the game for the first time he/she dont have anything to go with: no money, no items, no KNOWLEDGE... and since the recent changes in NI there's no experienced player to help either.

Atleast i can run from the NI as fast as possible and transfer some of the noob stuff from my other alt + some cash and get going in RK pretty easily but newbies cant do that... they need easy way to make creds first and the old NI was an easy way for that. At least you were able to make some 50-150k in there and with that youre able to buy some ql10 imps etc. from the mainland.

Now you have items that gives you 60-120 creds and those are even with a bad droprate.

And btw - go check the prices of ql 10-15 Alien weapons from GMS - a typed ql10+ carbine costs a few millions. And untyped are about 500k-1m... so that could be a very good income for the noobs.

Ok the prices are a bit higher now than before because they dont drop from the NI anymore - but still they were 50k-300k back then - and thats a lot for lvl 8 dude who has nothing to go with in the first place.

I mean wtf, I remember clearly it being stated by Sil that there would be another way to get our hands on low ql ai weapons since they had been removed from the island. I am assuming he ment the slim-to-none chance of a weapon drop in ai mishs from cacoon attendants and ONLY that mob. That is not acceptable at all. This restricts AI content from people paying for it those that have LE.. I don't see the connection.

So really can we get a answer on wtf we are supposed to put in our backpacks?

Over the course of the 2+ years I've been playing now, the Island became more and more the boring not to say annoying place it is now. The boss loot (the bosses only drop crap armor now btw), the rings, the alien weapons... all those litte things made the island a fun place IMO, and they certainly didn't do any harm to anybody. Today the mobs don't even drop take me to the shops anymore. :/
The NI is a good example of me not understanding why FC does some things. Why change it? This was absolutely not called for.

Oh, and I think the Island as it is now really gives a wrong picture of AO. AO after the island is not that questing game it is on the island. :P

Re: Newbie Island clearance

A Huge *** BUMP *** from me.

Add me to the List.

I recently returned to the game after bieng gone for a little over year (Been with the game since Feb. '03), and hearing about the new ICC starting area, decided I would check it out and make a new toon.

Boy was I Appalled, I mean really APPALLED by the condition of this so called "starting area" they had for newbies to start in.

It took me almost 3 hours to get a full suit of lvl 6 armor from the random mobs, that had such low drop rates it almost made me cry to think of the poor new people having to deal with this, Having the expierience I stayed there 3 days collecting as much lvl 6 armor I could get and handing it out, before I finally got fed up and deleted that toon I had made.

During my stay there, there was one newbie that had just decided to give AO a try because it appeared to be really cool (Which it is), and he was very excited to try it, he said he had spent 4 hours there (1hr grouped with me) and was so distraught at the conditions and feel of the game at the begining he was not even going to give it any more time (And he wasn't even Paying!!!)...

If Funcom's goal is to keep people from ever wanting to P2P (Pay to Play), then they are succeeding, I also started a new character on Jobe, hoping they where trying to push that expantion, and made it the focus for new people, instead of RK.

BOY WAS I EVER WRONG... It is just as bad, with the exception that they guide you thru game play in the SL's a little better than on RK. All the wonderfull loot and gear that used to be available to newbs there is also now gone, ingots no longer drop (Which I new they would eventually do away with) and the little loot that drops is also barely worth 160 creds at best, also a few of the weapons that where SL only and had to be "crafted", where made a lot harder to craft, since they reduced the overall drop rate of the neccesary mob parts.

I logged on my main to try and gather the materials to make a few new players (Yes actually new, not high lvls with new toons), some Notum Infused daggers from the lvl 10 silver tails in the SL begginer area, and it took me an hour, AN HOUR!!!, to finally get one damn horn to drop off the 3 ...Only 3... existing lvl 10 silver tails in the area... I gave up and logged on my old shade and just gave the ones I had been hording away to them.

This is utterly ridiculous, and needs to Change A.S.A.P., the future of AO depends on it.

give all old items back ti NI, please.
I remember myself being noob. on NI:

I learned the difference between +AR and +Dmg - because there were rings adding them.
I found +%XP ring, and learned about +XP modifiers.
I found different kinds of armor, and tried them on different mobs. (Newcomer's armour is good, but without 'AC-holes', and doesn't show you the difference.)
I've found some implants, and could prepare myself 'a bit' better for mainland. When you lvl 10 and with no money - even ql 5 imps count.
I found some low-lvl AI guns, but couldn't equip them. (and finally bought SL/AI)
I even found http://www.aomainframe.com/showitem.aspx?AOID=207260 , and had an 'UMPF!' thinking about using it.
I've made some NI-weapons, and it opened the world of crafting for me.

But I could NOT take all this with me.
Now I have backpack for all those items. But don't have the items! Please return them back.

Oh and while your at it please make the "RP" scenario on the island a little less one sided, i've seen newbs fall into the clam side just because Travis Molen said omni's are bastards :P happens quite a lot imho.

Clams are not the "Good guys" and Omni arn't the "Bad guys" thats the point of AO - its two different perspectives that really are just as good/bad as eachother.
- mind you; clams do have a skull hat
Weevil! *points*

Anyone else noticed this? I've even seen level 5 froobs asking how to go clam because they think they've made a mistake... they have no idea what their doing and yet the island has made them think they've made a mistake.